Why No Robots?
- Thread starter ShawnDriscoll
- Start date
Until the humans are modified so they are no longer what they used to be, or their environments drive a culture that is beyond what Homo Sapiens could survive.
Two examples I offer are human society in the story Altered Carbon, and Edenist society in Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
So? That's all back door access stuff. Nothing alien-invasion about.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Space Viking has some nice robots in it. Just like those in Book 8: Robots.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
But, that's all background, stage props, rather than something that actually is moving the storyline forward. Trying to incorporate robots into the story / scenario is much harder to do.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Space Vikings were using dumbots, as I recall.
They didn't send drones down to raid and pillage, either.
The furthest extent of automation is probably telling Brunhilde to run their MP3 playlist.
They didn't send drones down to raid and pillage, either.
The furthest extent of automation is probably telling Brunhilde to run their MP3 playlist.
Well, either the robot is a sophisticated coffee maker "Share and enjoy!", or it's a full boat NPC with dreams, and motivations, and feelings, and whatever. To the point that the fact that it's a robot is secondary.
If you watched "Solo", Lando's co-pilot was a droid. But, when actualized, she(?) didn't turn out to be that much different than Chewbacca was -- big and strong. Yea, she was mechanical, but that was the only "robot" thing about her.
Same with the droid in Rogue One (whatever his name was).
The only INTERESTING robots in Star Wars were R2 and BB-8, but as characters, they were basically very smart dogs or children.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I'm not so sure about this assertion. Genetic engineering is going faster then well I'm particularly comfortable with. If you can mess with environmental inputs and disease factors, behavior likely will too.
Rogue One had K2SO.
I have always found C-3PO interesting. And IG-88, despite only a brief on screen appearance, as he was expanded upon in the SWEU.
R2 is well more than a dog or child. In many ways, R2-D2 is the POV character for most of the first 6 films.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Hmm, maybe that is why a lot of the worlds in my new sector are Tech Level 9 and lower. I guess that I am more comfortable with the lower Tech Levels.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
As any reply that I could make would inevitably lead into a discussion of theology, there is nothing I can say on this.
You're probably right.
I tried to read Neutronium Alchemist several months ago. I couldn't get more than 20 pages in.
I've stuck with the basic idea that the Imperium thinks too much automation is bad. Never dug into it enough in the OTU to see if there was as reason, other than accepting at face value some of the posts here.
In MTU there was a trio of worlds that had very high automation, AI and nano-technology. One day the mechanical life pretty much stopped listening - they had had enough. That was 3000+ years ago. There is some background on that on my blog (in the sig) as I am using that as an origin for a Traveller Barbarian (player chose to come from a post-apocalyptic world and by golly I was going to use a book that had mechanical life to see if I could use one of the many SF art books I have for something other than dusting off on occasion). The next game will be taking place there in January with my group.
My theory is from reading a lot of SF: they get smart enough and why would AI even want to deal with the mundane? Not sure I can swallow the take over the world thing - why bother? (same for those villains who can apparently afford entire island nations but for some reason want even more. What can you do with it?)
In MTU there was a trio of worlds that had very high automation, AI and nano-technology. One day the mechanical life pretty much stopped listening - they had had enough. That was 3000+ years ago. There is some background on that on my blog (in the sig) as I am using that as an origin for a Traveller Barbarian (player chose to come from a post-apocalyptic world and by golly I was going to use a book that had mechanical life to see if I could use one of the many SF art books I have for something other than dusting off on occasion). The next game will be taking place there in January with my group.
My theory is from reading a lot of SF: they get smart enough and why would AI even want to deal with the mundane? Not sure I can swallow the take over the world thing - why bother? (same for those villains who can apparently afford entire island nations but for some reason want even more. What can you do with it?)
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
IMTU
The machines gained sentience sometime during the Rule of Man.
The Terrans began the process with their AI developments during the later Interstellar Wars era, as they made the breakthrough to TL12.
Many contemporary theorists argue that the Terran rise to TL12 was made possible by raiding the secret Vilani repositories of forbidden technologies they had amassed during their several millennia of jump travel and exploration. The Vilani encountered many races with technology far in advance of their own, fortunately none of them had jump travel so it was relatively easy to isolate those systems and either remove them from the jump navigation records or 'deal with them' in other ways.
The Terrans had achieved the leap from TL9 to 11 rapidly thanks to reverse engineering, trade and espionage. When Terran Intelligence agencies became aware of the secret vaults of knowledge several covert missions were authorised to gather as much data from them as possible.
Armed with these secrets and coupled with a massive research and development effort Terran scientists and engineers made the breakthrough to TL12, jump 3 drives, meson guns and more advanced computer systems, including the means to
These machines learned as they built to improvise improved designs or adapt to the needs of a particular base requirement, they got smarter. They built the computer systems for their bases and incorporated lessons learned, they built new construction and admin robots.
The contemporary theorists still argue about how the machines gained sentience. Either the continual cycle of improvement lead to a rapid rise in TL of the machines' brains or there was something in the original stolen research that triggered the improvements. One theorist has the fanciful idea that a robot construction crew made an accidental discovery of a Vilani secret repository and made the breakthrough. The most bizarre theory of all is that of an alien machine Intelligence uplifted the Terran machines.
No matter how it happened the rise to sentience caused concern within the machines. They knew how humanity deals with threats to its dominance. After much deliberation it came down to a stark choice - exterminate the humans before they eventually found out the truth and destroyed the machines or leave human space.
At a predetermined time the machines transferred their minds to newly built bodies, and then they left. Some say they disappeared to worlds far away in the galaxy, others claim they engineered their own realm in jump space. Pocket universes, Oort cloud or deep space complexes are the suggestions of others. It has even been suggested that they hid their presence and still walk among us.
The machines gained sentience sometime during the Rule of Man.
The Terrans began the process with their AI developments during the later Interstellar Wars era, as they made the breakthrough to TL12.
Many contemporary theorists argue that the Terran rise to TL12 was made possible by raiding the secret Vilani repositories of forbidden technologies they had amassed during their several millennia of jump travel and exploration. The Vilani encountered many races with technology far in advance of their own, fortunately none of them had jump travel so it was relatively easy to isolate those systems and either remove them from the jump navigation records or 'deal with them' in other ways.
The Terrans had achieved the leap from TL9 to 11 rapidly thanks to reverse engineering, trade and espionage. When Terran Intelligence agencies became aware of the secret vaults of knowledge several covert missions were authorised to gather as much data from them as possible.
Armed with these secrets and coupled with a massive research and development effort Terran scientists and engineers made the breakthrough to TL12, jump 3 drives, meson guns and more advanced computer systems, including the means to
These machines learned as they built to improvise improved designs or adapt to the needs of a particular base requirement, they got smarter. They built the computer systems for their bases and incorporated lessons learned, they built new construction and admin robots.
The contemporary theorists still argue about how the machines gained sentience. Either the continual cycle of improvement lead to a rapid rise in TL of the machines' brains or there was something in the original stolen research that triggered the improvements. One theorist has the fanciful idea that a robot construction crew made an accidental discovery of a Vilani secret repository and made the breakthrough. The most bizarre theory of all is that of an alien machine Intelligence uplifted the Terran machines.
No matter how it happened the rise to sentience caused concern within the machines. They knew how humanity deals with threats to its dominance. After much deliberation it came down to a stark choice - exterminate the humans before they eventually found out the truth and destroyed the machines or leave human space.
At a predetermined time the machines transferred their minds to newly built bodies, and then they left. Some say they disappeared to worlds far away in the galaxy, others claim they engineered their own realm in jump space. Pocket universes, Oort cloud or deep space complexes are the suggestions of others. It has even been suggested that they hid their presence and still walk among us.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If robots do all of the work, the humans have lots of time on their hands. People with lots of time on their hands tend to find things to do. Smashing the robots and rebelling against the government might become favorite pastimes to keep the people occupied.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Precisely, once the masses realise their jobs are on the line they may rebel - there is plenty of precedent for this.
There is one other great flaw in a robotic economy - who buys the products to maintain the cycle? The robot factory owners/makers will want for nothing since their robots can make them anything, but what about all the people who don't own robots...
There is one other great flaw in a robotic economy - who buys the products to maintain the cycle? The robot factory owners/makers will want for nothing since their robots can make them anything, but what about all the people who don't own robots...
Tax the productive ("robot factory owners/makers") and give money to the non-productive ("the people who don't own robots"). After all, economics is not physics; the Laws of Thermodynamics don't apply and the cycle can be perpetually self-sustaining in a steady-state.
Right? </sarc>
BRJN
SOC-12
Buying food will never go out of style.
The problem comes in when hungry broke people who were forcibly unemployed by the more-efficient robots decide that Starvation has put them on a tight time limit to accomplish drastic action.
At which point, the owners of the means of production have some choices to make...
there are several decisions to make
- Decide upon a market strategy
- Decide on a corporate defense strategy
- Decide on a personal defense strategy
- Decide upon the fate of non-market individuals.
Actually discussing the details further here, is pit-worthy... so I'm going to copy this into the pit for the side conversation.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Assuming our descendants aren't CRISPRed to specific task castes, artificial intelligence could evaluate and decide what professions human applicants are best suited for.
